Puerto Azul 1927

Curator: I feel immediately drawn into this playful dreamscape. It's "Puerto Azul" by Xul Solar, a mixed media piece, primarily watercolor, created in 1927. What catches your eye first? Editor: The pervasive presence of ladders… they almost feel like veins connecting these peculiar, totemic structures. There’s an element of ascending to another, almost spiritual plane. Curator: Ladders and steps are potent symbols for Xul Solar, constantly appearing in his art. He saw them as pathways to knowledge, transcendence… a climb towards understanding the universe, or perhaps just our own inner worlds. Editor: Look at the buildings: cubic, stacked forms—little boxes, one on top of the other—it reminds me of a surreal favela, almost like looking at a city, viewed through the lens of memory, filtered and reformed. It recalls to me what Kandinsky theorized in his book "Concerning the Spiritual in Art", but in Solar, it takes an unexpected latin-american turn. Curator: A lot of it comes down to color for me. See the blues and golds, creating a calming balance, even though there’s this vibrant chaos, right? And those flags fluttering on the rooftops, little splashes of nationality amidst the dreamscape. I wonder if each is intended as a different station of spiritual travel. Editor: Flags represent boundaries, both real and imagined. They signify belonging and separation. The way Solar uses them seems less about literal nations and more about claiming territories within his invented cosmologies. It feels playful but it evokes a real underlying longing for connection. What is very fascinating is the use of geometry co-existing alongside symbolic elements, it truly invites the viewer to become a cartographer in his unique world. Curator: Precisely! There is something utterly utopian, utterly melancholic at the very same time, it invites a sense of travel between real and imagined realms, a bridge constructed in the spectator’s mind… a feeling of sweet escapism, almost. Well, that was quite a little trip wasn't it? Editor: Yes, a rather vibrant venture, indeed, where abstraction becomes a compass towards ourselves!